Tonedef wrote
I went and got myself a variety of sharkfins the other day. Boy, what an improvement over the hard toilet seats provided with the axe! My favourite atm is the pink one, the thinnest. I suspect it's because it is more forgiving when you make a mistake - the string isnt attacked as hard. Good or bad thing? PS what are the little niblet thingies on the top edge for.
IMO those lightweight picks are ultimately not a good idea. There's the control issue for one. I think this will get to be more of a problem the faster you want to play. Visualise it in your mind -those very light picks (not just sharkfin - any brand) will be wobbling all over the place.
A heavier pick also gives a better tone. Again you can picture this in your mind - the light pick will tend to give when it hits the string. The heavier, stiffer pick will give less and transfer more energy to the string.
Yes... they feel nice, but there's a price to be paid (there always is).
I made a fairly serious effort the last couple of months to get more comfortable with a pick and have more facility with it. I've concentrated on finger style playing a lot the last few years. I was having trouble even holding on to a pick. Things have improved.
I found the stiffer picks do give better tone. I don't want to talk in gauges because a 1mmm Dunlop nylon (what I settled on) is not the same stiffness as a 1mm Dunlop tortex. Different materials and shapes do offer different pros and cons. This is a good thing - you can experiment and find something that works well for you. I found I like picks with a tapered edge to them rather than a blunt edge.
You do feel the pick engaging the strings more with stiffer picks (though, again, I think the shape of the edge can reduce or exaggerate this).
There is another implication of this for those who play a lot. I remember a question put to Richard Thompson via his web site a while back. He said that he tours with Gibson mediums. He went on to say that he finds heavies give a better tone, and he sometimes uses them in the studio, but he finds that when he is gigging a lot his hand and arm take a little more strain using the heavies so it's mediums that he takes on the road. YMMW - Thompson is a pretty aggressive acoustic player, hitting the strings hard and using a hybrid technique most of the time. People with a more gentle or conventional approach may find a heavy does quite well.
My problems with the pick are all mental ones. I settled on a 1mm Dunlop nylon. Last week at TJs I managed to play 2 consecutive songs without dropping a pick or even having to try to flick it back into place with a free finger. This is substantial progress for me. However I suspect that there's now a little voice in my head saying that I can only play with black Dunlop nylon Fender-shape picks.
